I saw the strangest thing on TV last night – or rather, it’s not that strange when you think about it but the first time you see it, it makes you think “Eh! What?”.

Getting out of nightshifts and back into day mode is never easy, and so I’ve been up at 2, 3 and 4am a lot this week even when not working, doing er … this and that, and in the background I tend to have on in the background either MTV Hits or The Box.

And here’s the thing – between the hours of 4 and 5am, The Box shows videos as normal – except with someone doing sign language for the lyrics in the corner of the screen! It’s quite fascinating to watch.

Now I know that Paul does sign language, and I just wondered if he or anyone else that would like to stay up to the wee hours to watch it and could vouch for just how accurate it is!

They’ve gone through and worked on quite a repertoire of songs too – not just current hits – so my favourite ever Christmas song “Fairytale of New York” got the signing treatment too. Actually I say that FONY is my fave xmas choon, but then I heard the Pretenders “2000 miles” today for the first time this season, and I suddenly decided that I liked that. I’ll probably hear East 17’s “Stay another day” next week and be all fickle and change my mind again.

So as a warm up to ‘Top 5’s of the year‘ (CD complete by the way, I’ve just got to design a logo & sleeve for it), what’s your favourite christmas song, and why?

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1. Fairytale of New York: I think it’s almost worth getting up at 4am to see someone signing you scumbag, you maggot, etc.
2. I was born on Christmas Day – fantastically, wonderfully joyous. I smile merely typing the title.
3. She Won’t Be Home (Erasure). If you think Have Yourself a merry merry christmas is depressing, this might well tip you over the edge.

I did see one of those signers in the corner do the actions to “Toxic” by Britney Spears once at 4am.

I found the bits of dancing they did in between the lyrics when there were instrumental bits quite funny though. I know it’s a bit wrong to laugh but what are you to do if you’ve come in at the wee hours?

I’d like to see one of the signers attempt to do any rap song with loads of swearing in and shizzling my nizzle etc and all that bollocks. Should be interesting to see if they translate it word for word. Failing that, try the Crazy Frog (mind you I would have the sound on mute). 🙂

Ok, we’ve had mentions now of the Crazy Frog and the Fast Food Rockers in the comments – I’m getting slightly worried about the standard of readership here. Honestly – I feel that me liking a Girls Aloud christmas track would be raising the standard!

Anthony, true point but if I was “doing sign language” to Rebekah or one of her mates I would say “I was speaking to…” … after all BSL (British Sign Language) is a recognised language (and about bloody time!)

This is perfectly true, and it would be unfair to regard sign language as a sub-language, or treat it in any way differently to a spoken language, but there will, unfortunately, always be discrepancies in English itself.

My vote goes for either Fairytale of New York (being re-released for charity this Christmas, fact fans), or the lounge easy-listening version of Merry Christmas Everyone by Tony Christie. I’ve got a velvet smoking jacket for such an occasion.